Angevine Thorne's lips trembled at this veiled accusation and he stretched out his hands pleadingly. "I swear, Pardner," he protested, "I never heard a word about it until last Saturday! I was in the Geronimo jail."
"Oh!" said Pecos, and without more words he gave him his own right hand. The cowboys, who had been uneasy witnesses of the scene, seized upon this as a favorable opportunity to make their escape, leaving the two of them to talk it out together.
"What in the world happened to us, Angy?" demanded Pecos in a hushed voice, when the effusion of reconciliation had passed, "did Crit put gun-powder in our whiskey or was it a case of stuffed club? I was plumb paralyzed, locoed, and cross-eyed for a week—and my head ain't been right since!" He brushed his hand past his face and made a motion as of catching little devils out of the air, but Angy stayed his arm.
"Nothin' like that, Pecos," he pleaded, hoarsely, "I'm on the ragged edge of the jim-jams myself, and if I get to thinkin' of crawly things I'll sure get 'em! No, it was jest that accursed liquor! I don't know what happened—I remember Crit takin' me down to Geronimo and givin' me five dollars and then it was all a dream until I found myself in the jag-cell. But it's the liquor that does it, Pecos—that and the capitalistic classes and the officers of the law. They's no hope for the common people as long as they keep on drinkin'—there's always some feller like Crit to skin 'em, and the constables to run 'em in. It's a conspiracy, I tell you; they're banded together to drug and rob us—but, Pardner, there is one man who is going to balk the cowardly curs. Never, never, never, will I let another drop of liquor pass my lips!" He raised his hand to heaven as he swore the familiar oath, hoping and yet not hoping that some power would come down to him to help him fight his fate. "Will you join me, Cumrad?" he asked, laying hold of Pecos's shoulder. "You will? Well, let's shake on it—here's to the revolution!"
They shook, and turned instinctively toward the bar, but such a pledge cannot be cemented in the usual manner, so Angy led the way outside and sought a seat in the shade.
"Where's my little friend Marcelina?" inquired Pecos, after a long look at the white adobe with the brush ramada which housed the Garcia family, "hidin' behind a straw somewhere?"
"Gone!" said Angy, solemnly. "Gone, I know not where."
"What—you don't mean to say—" cried Pecos, starting up.
"Her mother sent her down to Geronimo the day that I came up," continued Babe, winking fast. "It looks as if she fears my influence, but she will not say. Poor little Marcelina—how I miss her!" He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand and shook his head sadly. "Verde ain't been the same to me since then," he said, "an' life ain't worth livin'. W'y, Pecos, if I thought we done something we oughten to when we was drunk that time I'd go out and cut my throat—but the Señora is powerful mad. Kin you recollect what went on?"